Education Secretary Arne Duncan: Detroit can be fastest-improving urban school district in nation

Jonathan Oosting | MLive.comU.S. Secretary of Arne Duncan speaks at the Charles H. Wright Academy of Arts and Sciences in Detroit on September 8, 2011.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Thursday challenged community members, local leaders and state officials to make Detroit Public Schools the fastest-improving urban district in the nation over the next three to five years.

"I see no reason why it can't happen," Duncan said during a panel discussion at the Charles H. Wright Academy of Arts and Science, one of the highest-performing elementary schools in Detroit. "You can look at what's happened in all these other cities, what's worked and what hasn't, and you can leapfrog past that."

"I would urge everybody here to be very, very ambitious. If Detroit can become the fastest-improving urban district in the country, think what that could mean for the children. And more broadly, think about what that could mean for the city. Just as you can't have a great state without having a great city of Detroit, you cannot revitalize the city of Detroit without a great public education system. Those two things are inextricably linked."

And it will take very, very ambitious leaders to improve DPS and stop the exodus of families seeking better educational opportunities in the suburbs. The district has been under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager since 2009 and is saddled with a $327 million deficit, declining enrollment, a lower-than average graduation rate and dozens of struggling schools.

Duncan was joined at the school by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, Mayor Dave Bing, state schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan, DPS Emergency Manager Roy Roberts, Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson, Detroit Parent Network Executive Director Sharlonda Buckman and Dan Varner, executive director of Excellent Schools Detroit and a member of the state board of education.

Two years after first calling Detroit "ground zero" for public education in America, Duncan said he is seeing an unprecedented level of cooperation in the district between local leaders, state officials and philanthropic organizations. Specifically, he praised Snyder, Bing and Roberts for their commitment to turning around the district.

"I couldn't be more hopeful, more optimistic about where Detroit can go," he said. "There's an alignment of leadership, an alignment of courage that frankly happens far too rarely."

Since Snyder took office earlier this year, the state has taken several aggressive -- and often controversial -- steps toward improving Detroit schools. The legislature strengthened Michigan's emergency manager law and passed teacher tenure reform, Snyder appointed Roberts to run the district, he formed an authority that eventually will take over the lowest-performing schools around the state and he announced the "

The latter program, funded by corporate and philanthropic organizations and modeled after the "Kalamazoo promise," initially will guarantee two years of higher education or vocational training for all high school graduates in Detroit, and leaders hope to expand the offer to four years at some point in the future.

"I think the Detroit Promise is such an important piece of this puzzle," Duncan said, noting he has spent time in Kalamazoo and seen the impact the scholarship has had there. "It might be the best economic tool the city can have. If we can guarantee that not just a two-year, but even a four-year university education is possible for every young man and woman who graduates from the Detroit Pubic Schools, that would be absolutely amazing."

While Duncan spent most of the session echoing the governor's call for "relentless positive action," not every one was as enthused by the state's role in reshaping the district. One audience member pointed out that DPS has been under state control for the majority of the past decade even as the deficit grew and test scores declined.

Critics also questioned the implementation -- not the necessarily the goals -- of the Education Achievement System authority. Details remain unclear, but Snyder and Roberts have said EAS will be public-private partnership that will assume operation of the lowest five-percent of schools, first in Detroit and then across the rest of the state.

The EAS to incorporate several principles embraced by the progressive educational community, including more-autonomous school governance, increased parental involvement and potentially longer school days.

"The goal there is to ask how do we empower those schools?" Snyder said. "How do we give the educators and principals the best tools and put the focus in our education system on what matters most: student growth? We are going to make that happen."

Detroit was today's first stop on Duncan's "Education and the Economy" bus tour, which seeks to highlight the connection between the nation's public education system and economic growth. He'll visit the University of Michigan's School of Education later today.